Landholm, whose acre of land on West Lake Road borders Canandaigua Lake, isn’t lackadaisical about keeping up a decent-looking lawn. But he is among a growing number of people who are sacrificing a perfect lawn for one that that is gentle on the environment.

From lawn care to pest control, products and methods that are gentle on land and lake are taking root.

“There is more awareness than there was 15 or 20 years ago,” said Russell Welser, an educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ontario County. While there are still times when using manmade chemicals are OK — and sometimes even necessary when natural remedies don’t do the trick — in many cases, it just takes a change of attitude to become more environmentally friendly, Welser said.

“Hand trowels and popping forks work very nicely,” he said, referring to hands-on weed control.

And while you may spend time weeding, you can let up a bit on mowing. Keeping your grass a little longer is also a good way to discourage weeds, said Welser, because it “smothers out some plants and keeps weed seeds from germinating.”

Welser recommends keeping the grass between 2.5 inches and 3 inches. And when bare spots emerge, reseed, he said.

Landholm recently conferred with his lawn-care specialist, Dave Barclay, owner of Back to Nature Lawn Service in Canandaigua. Barclay launched his natural-methods lawn service about five years ago after consulting with watershed experts and those at Cornell Cooperative Extension, to name a few.

“I look at my kids, grandkids,” he said. “They roll on lawns, run around barefoot.” He liked the idea of working outdoors and promoting natural products at the same time.

Barclay’s methods include the use of corn gluten, a natural herbicide discovered by Iowa State University researcher Nick Christians. The powdery byproduct of the corn-milling process is becoming a popular weed-and-feed product. The natural protein acts as plant food as well as weed-suppresser.

But as with any natural products, Barclay said, the results can be inconsistent and the effectiveness can vary depending on weather and other factors. Barclay combines its use with other strategies such as keeping grass a bit higher than normal and using a chicken-manure compost fertilizer.

King of the compost heap

Over in Naples, Mark Adams can attest to the rising interest in “organic” composting — like organic vegetables and fruit, the mundane process of composting has become commercially rated.

Back in 2004, Adams began making an organic fertilizer from chicken manure at his egg farm on Hickory Bottom Road. That was four years after his farm unwittingly created a stir when chicken manure he had been spreading became fertile ground for fly eggs. The swarm that hit neighbors’ homes on County Road 36 was followed by a swarm of news reports as media outlets from as far away as Japan played up the freak occurrence.

State Agriculture Department officials found Adams hadn’t done anything wrong or damaged the environment. But the incident confirmed Adams’ decision to move ahead with a plan to compost for commercial fertilizer.

His business took a few years to get off the ground, but the investment was worth it: “It really took off this year,” he said.

After research and spending some $80,000 of his own money — Adams got a $220,500 state grant through the county’s Soil and Water Conservation District to help with the project — his operation was up and running.

With help from Cornell University, Adams developed a system that uses wood chips, corn stalks, hay and manure from his 75,000 laying hens to produce compost rated “organic.”

Making a batch of fertilizer takes months of work that involves monitoring moisture and temperature levels to kill weed seeds and pathogens such as E. coli and salmonella.

Adams said he has already sold out of the 500 tons he had for sale this season. His customers include big-time soybean and alfalfa farmers, as well as home gardeners.

Part of the reason his product has become so popular is cost, said Adams. The price of chemical fertilizer has doubled recently, to about $600 a ton. While the amount of fertilizer needed will vary depending on the product and other factors, Adams said buying his organic product is still cheaper than buying chemical varieties.

Pest management

When it comes to “green” pest control, vacuum cleaners are among the first line of defense.

“Traditional pest-control companies run around spraying pesticides,” said Joel Sklar, vice president of sales at Assured Environments, an integrated pest management company in Manhattan. “We’re using glue traps to find out where there are animals and pests ... and we seal holes and areas to prevent them from getting in.”

Instead of using chemicals, eco-warriors investigate how and why pests infiltrate a building. Then they rely on detergent water, vacuum cleaners and low or no-toxicity products to fight the problem.

“Probably the best product out there is a door sweep,” said Tom Green, president of the Integrated Pest Management Institute North America Inc. in Wisconsin, referring to the vinyl strips installed on the bottoms of doors.

“A mouse can squeeze through a hole the size of a pencil diameter. So if you’ve got a quarter-inch gap underneath your door, as far as a mouse is concerned, there’s no door there at all.”

He also recommends using sealant on cracks to keep bugs from getting inside homes and moving garbage cans far from residential buildings to keep rodents away.

Besides such prevention strategies, green pest-control products are also in demand.

“Natural pest controls are the fastest growing part of our business,” said Eric Vinje, owner of Planet Natural, an online and catalog-based gardening-supply business based in Montana. “A lot of the ingredients in these products are everyday ingredients, like mint oil or orange peel.”

His most popular products include Orange Guard, which suffocates insects, and diatomaceous earth, made from skeletal remains of plants that can cut through insects’ protective shells and kill them. He also recommended boric acid-based products, like Terra Ant Killer.

“It acts as a stomach poison to insects,” Vinje said. But “for us, it’s about as toxic as table salt.”

Vinje also provides clients with more unusual solutions.

Last October, for instance, his company sent more than 720,000 ladybugs to two Manhattan apartment complexes where the landscaping was being decimated by aphids and mites. The red-and-black bugs were unleashed on the 80-acre grounds to eat the pests.

Green, whose organization certifies green exterminating companies, says there are always going to be situations where a pesticide is needed. Russell Welser, of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ontario County, agrees. Ridding some of the big, old homes in the rural areas of pests will sometimes require chemical treatments, he said.

But the experts also believe the demand for natural pest management services and products is growing.

“The pesticide manufacturing industry has really worked hard over the last 10 years to bring new products to market that are much less toxic,” said Green. “We’re making a lot of progress.”

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